Location: Suburb of Birmingham, AL - Home of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

All We Know About Maximizing CPU Related Performance

For those individuals who have successfully built or currently successfully build their own system(s) and/or have successfully modified or do successfully modify their prebuilt system(s) for maximum CPU performance, and for those individuals who are earnestly interested in successfully building or modifying their own personal prebuilt system(s) for maximum CPU performance, this thread is dedicated to being a one-stop-shop for locating information helpful for successfully maximizing CPU performance. There are other threads (and forums) for the expression of views by those who advocate (or believe) that doing neither is best and there are other threads (and forums) for software, including OS, installation [such as http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...owtopic=185097 ] and tweaking [such as http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...ic=233891&st=0 or http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...owtopic=196771 ], but this isn't one of those threads. So with that opening in mind, I hope that those of you who are experienced and successful at maximizing CPU performance by system build and/or modification contribute your knowledge so that those who truly desire to learn how to enhance their system's CPU's performance are enlightened. I hope that those of you who truly desire to learn how to enhance system CPU performance by system build and/or modification get your questions answered clearly and satisfactory.

By using the phrase "CPU Related Performance" I intend that this thread also include information regarding other modifications such as, but not limited to, better cooling, faster storage, video card upgrades for OCL/CUDA assist, PCI-e based CPU assist, and memory upgrades.

Please revisit this first post regularly as I will be continually compiling here a resource summary for building and modifying different systems. This summary includes:

2) Mac Pro 2,1 -
(a) same as Mac Pro 1,1, except (depending on your CPU) BSEL/VID mod may not be needed and EFI utility for 2006 MP isn't needed;
(b) For other very helpful information such as steps to follow, perceived level of difficulty, and time to complete, see the following posts: ... .

3) Mac Pro 3,1 -
(a) same as Mac Pro 2,1, except 800 MHz ram comes stock, no BSEL/VID mod needed, and CPU options differ [For possible Xeon 5400 CPU configurations see http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/T...on%205400.html and for standard/approved configurations see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_Pro ];
(b) For other very helpful information such as steps to follow, perceived level of difficulty, and time to complete, see the following posts: ... .

6) Mac Pro 6,1
(a) CPU swap;
(b) Memory swap/upgrade;
(c) Storage swap/upgrade;
(d) For other very helpful information such as steps to follow, perceived level of difficulty, and time to complete, see the following posts: ... .

II. Building your own system:

Please keep in mind that you must be willing to continuously learn and eventually do for yourself; than pay it forward to the newcomers.

1) Single CPU system -
(a) Gigabyte motherboards recommended for a good combination of price/performance/flexibility. Consider an X79 Sandy Bridge (socket 2011) motherboard and a Xeon 1650 [3.2 -> 3.8 GHz] - has error correction support - $583 for best price/performance if you can use 6 cores or a Xeon 1620 [3.6 -> 3.9 GHz] - has error correction support - $294 for best price/performance if all that you need are 4 cores http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge. For the best performance if you going to be over- or under- clocking the system, get memory at least one, and preferably two, steps higher than that recommended by the motherboard manufacturer. That means, e.g., if the manufacturer recommends DDR3 1333 MHz memory, get DDR3 1600, or preferably DDR3 1800/1866 memory, because you'll need that headroom whether you overclock or underclock, unless you rely solely on just increasing the CPU multiplier on an unlocked CPU. Tweaked i7 3960X [ http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/562206 ] and 3930K [ http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/590733 ] single processor systems are beginning to displace older 2P+ systems even on pages 3 and 4 of top Geekbench 2 scores, yielding Geekbench 2 scores in the 27,000 - 30,000 range; thus, surpassing the benchmarks of the top of the line 2P 2010/2012 Mac Pros, even those with the 5690X processor swap. Keeping my system's V-core within Spec VID, the best that I could achieve with the 3930k was a Geekbench 2 score of 27605 in Windows 7 [ http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench2/850697 ]. Moreover, the performance delta between 2 proc self-builds and 1 proc self-builds appears to be narrowing; thus, the glow of 2 proc self-build systems appears to be fading, especially it view of the widening cost delta of 2 proc self-build systems over 1 proc self-build systems.

ASRocks have gotten very good reviews and their literature says (and some of the reviews have mentioned that claim) that it has a feature whereby you can lock down the things that Intel has lately tied to the BCLK so that you can over- and under-clock the Sandy Bridge cpus just like with the Westmere cpus (they call it: " Untied Overclocking Technology"). Here's how one of their manuals describes it:

2.26 Untied Overclocking Technology
This motherboard supports Untied Overclocking Technology, which means during
overclocking, BCLK enjoys better margin due to fixed PCIE buses. Before you
enable Untied Overclocking function, please enter “Overclock Mode” option of UEFI
setup to set the selection from [Auto] to [Manual]. Therefore, BCLK is untied during
overclocking, but PCIE buses are in the fixed mode so that BCLK can operate under
a more stable overclocking environment.

Before buying an ASRock motherboard, I suggest that you confirm whether ASRock's literature is accurate. You should call or email them.
(b) Cases/cooling - I prefer the Antec Twelve Hundred. See 2(b), below.
(c) For other very helpful information such as steps to follow, perceived level of difficulty, and time to complete, see the following posts: ... .

For the best performance if you going to be over- or under- clocking the system (only an option on the EVGA SR-2), get memory at least one, and preferably two, steps higher than that recommended by the motherboard manufacturer. That means, e.g., if the manufacturer recommends DDR3 1333 MHz memory, get at least DDR3 1600, or preferably DDR3 1800/1866 memory, because you'll need that headroom whether you overclock or underclock, unless you rely solely on just increasing the CPU multiplier on an unlocked CPU;
(b) Case/Cooling - There are Mountain Mod cases [ http://www.mountainmods.com/computer-cases-c-21.html ] and Lian Li cases [e.g., http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112312 ] that are roomy and completely functional. However, since I like sleek styling, a front grill look and I'm more interested in cooling, I now use modified Antec Twelve Hundreds [ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129100 ] because, for cooling - then desired styling, nothing beats these metal cases for the price. They have 3 - 120mm front panel ("FP") fans. I've reversed the flow of the top one to be an exhaust and swapped its positioning with the DVD drives, but a little more on that later. There's a 120mm fan on the side for additional cooling for the GPU. There's a 200mm fan on the top (we all know that heat rises). There's a grill on the rear for the card slots to exhaust PCIe card heat. But most important to me are the 2 120 mm fan accommodations on the rear. I've set them up as 2 air intakes for dual fan radiator cooling, i.e., ->fan->radiator->fan----->reversed FP fan->) for 2 Corsair 80s [ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835181016 ] for cooling two CPUs.
(c) SR-2 recommended bios settings:
i) Under Frequency/Voltage Control for overclocking change the following to:
PCIE Frequency Setting - 102-103;
ii) Under Voltage Configuration for clock tweaking change the following to:
All Bootup and Eventual Vcore to "Auto;"
All Bootup VTT's to 3.50 to 3.75, depending on stability needs;
All Eventual VTT's to 3.75 to 1.4, depending on stability needs;
IOH to 3.75 to 1.4, depending on stability needs. Leave all other parameters at default, except disable VDroop.
iii) Under Signal Tweaks change the following to:
Only PCIE Signals 1 and 2 should be "Auto", all of the rest should be set at their maximum negative value;
iv) Under CPU Configuration change the following to:
Only Max CPUID Value Limit should be disabled; everything else should be enabled, including but not limited to, Intel® SpeedStep(™) tech, TurboMode tech, and C-State tech.
v) Under Memory Configuration change the following to:
Try Auto/Default states for all until system is completely stable.
vi) Advanced Settings:SATA Configuration:Configure SATA#1 as [AHCI]
vii) Power Management Features:ACPI Configuration:General ACPI Configuration: Suspend Mode: [S3(STR)]
viii) Power Management Features:ACPI Configuration:Chipset ACPI Configuration: High Precision Event Timer: [Enabled]

(d) For other very helpful information such as steps to follow, perceived level of difficulty, and time to complete, see the following posts: ... .

3) 4+ CPU system - For Intel And AMD chips - SuperMicro (and now Asus) motherboards. Supermicro has a board with 4 full length PCI-e 2.0 slots and 4 G34 sockets and 16 ram slots that can handle 64 GB of unbuffered memory (and up to 256GB registered ECC) [ http://www.supermicro.com/a_images/p...GL-6F_spec.jpg ]. Asus has also introduced quad processor servers. They are the RS920-E7/RS8 server [ http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstati...rs/RS920E7RS8/ ] and RS926-E7/RS8 server [ http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstati...rs/RS926E7RS8/ ]. Both support the Intel 4600 series 4-way Xeon® Romley-EP 4S and are equipped with 32 DIMM slots, onboard VGA and 6+1 expansion slots. They can contain eight hot-swap hard drives and 1+1 redundant power supplies and retail for between $2,500 to $3,000 w/o HDs, ram and CPUs. Supermicro has two quad processer (Xeon Sandy Bridge 4600s) motherboards: the MBD-X9QRi-F+ -B: http://www.supermicro.com/products/m...0/X9QRi-F_.cfm and the MBD-X9QR7-TF+ -B: http://www.supermicro.com/products/m.../X9QR7-TF_.cfm . Before 3D Fluff ceased updating their cinebench scores site, an Opteron 6174 system with 48 cores and threads, running at 2.2 GHz on Win XP 64 bit, reported the highest reported Cinebench 11.5 score of 27.2 [ http://www.cbscores.com/index.php?sort=rend&order=desc ]. Now the latest G34 processors have 16 cores each and run at 3.1 Ghz each (not 2.2 Ghz); so they would probably have higher Cinebench 11.5 scores than the Opteron 6174 systems. The quad CPU Sandy Bridge 4600 systems are even better performers.
(a) These systems don't support CPU tweaking very much;
(b) For other very helpful information such as steps to follow, perceived level of difficulty, and time to complete, see the following posts: ... .

1) EIC Solutions has an interesting solution. These [ http://www.eicsolutions.com/blog/pre...protector-1043 ] pre-packaged air conditioned enclosures, if priced right, might spell the end to water cooling and case envy, and lead to the occurrence of higher and more frequent turbo boosting, better over clocking performance if you are into that, and prolonged system life.

V. Credits:

This summary is based on information gathered from various sources and resources regarding maximizing CPU performance, including posts in this thread and forum.

VI. Suggestions:

For anyone who has successfully built or currently successfully builds his/her own system(s) and/or has successfully modified or does successfully modify his/her own prebuilt system(s) for maximum CPU performance, please describe (or provide URL references to) what you did in sufficient detail for replication by someone who may be new to this endeavor? It might also be helpful to those new to this endeavor to get answers to questions such as the following: How do you evaluate the level of difficulty involved and why? What are the gotchas and other caveats, and how do you recommend countering or contending with them? What are the costs involved? What's the estimate of time it will take from start to completion? How do you measure the success or maximization of CPU performance achieved? Was the performance gain worth the cost, time, effort and any downsides?

For all who are interested in this thread, what's new in CPU/CPU-GPU assisted performance and what might it mean to maximizing CPU or CPU-like performance?

I updated my 4,1 Mac Pro to a 5,1 by swapping my quad 3.33 W3580 CPU with a 6-core 3.33 W3680 CPU, as shown in this thread.

Prior to the CPU swap, I updated the firmware from 4,1 to 5,1 with a firmware tool as described in a thread on netkas.org (sorry, link currently not working.)

I also upgraded from four 4GB sticks of 1066 RAM to four 8GB sticks of 1333 RAM. When I applied the firmware tool, the RAM began running at 1333 on the old CPU, since that CPU supported the speed, but the 4,1 firmware did not. When I replaced the W3580 with the W3680, the only difference was the two additional cores, of course. As far as my Mac Pro is concerned, it is a 2010 5,1 Mac Pro.

Before all that, I replaced the stock 4870 GPU with a GTX285 and then a 5870. I also installed an Areca 1880ix-12 RAID card, LG 10x Blu-ray writer, and an eSATA card in the PCI slots. Recently, I changed the Newer Tech eSATA card with a Caldigit card that has two eSATA and two USB 3.0 ports, which is much better. Bootable and hot pluggable.

Time and difficulty:

Time to run 4,1 --> 5,1 utility: I think it took five seconds, maybe less? I forgot.Difficulty: As easy as double-clicking an app, and saying 'yes'.

Time to replace CPU: 20 minutes (I took my time and ate waffles while jamming some tunes as I performed swap.)Difficulty to replace CPU: Easy. Using right tool on 5 bolts in heat sink is necessary. The pins on the CPU are flat contacts, not delicate prongs like some might think, so it literally 'drops' in. It's not tricky at all. Take the time to clean the old thermal paste nicely, and reapply fresh thermal paste very neat and thin. I used Arctic Silver 5. Temps are same as quad that shipped from Apple.

Time to swap GPU: 3 minutes, most of which is plugging and unplugging everything from rear and removing side panel.Difficulty to swap GPU: Easy. Don't forget to push the button on the grey fan and slide it to the left, and return it to the right after new GPU is in place.

Time to swap other PCI cards: 25 seconds if you've already got side panel open.Difficulty to swap PCI cards: Easy. Use bracket on end and groove in slot to guide the connection, and snap into place firmly. Verify alignment by looking at it from the rear to see how it sits in the PCI bay window.

Time to replace optical drive: 5 minutesDifficulty to replace optical drive: Easy. Remove the extra piece on the disc tray door so it fits in Mac Pro's auto-flip door area. Just the bare disc tray should be in place on the drive itself, no door attached, as the Mac Pro uses its own silver door.

__________________Wait a second... So you're telling me anything that happens in the sky is legal, and there's a giant crime-blimp flying around this place? I don't know how I missed that.

Location: Suburb of Birmingham, AL - Home of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Building your own decked out single CPU 4-core system for under $1500.

The problem with significantly over and under clocking some locked Sandy Bridges is that Intel has tied the base clock (BCLK or BClock, set to 100 MHz) to DMI/PCI-e controller [ http://www.corsair.com/blog/sandy-bridge-e-oc-guide ]. So that if you were to use past methods of under and over clocking you will slow down or speed up some things more than should be the case (particularly in the case of that PCI-e bus), resulting in the system not posting and booting. For example, if you were to raise BCLK to 110, your system will not boot (most unlocked chips won't even tolerate a change of more than 5 or 6 steps on either side of 100). The solution for the first edition of the Sandy Bridges (and for the Sandy Bridge E i7s) was and is to buy a K edition for a higher price because those chips have unlocked multipliers. To counter the DMI problem in the Sandy Bridge E & E5-series, Intel introduced 125, 166 and 250 CPU straps. These straps are supposed to allow you to increase the CPU's frequency and memory speed by using BCLK, without having a disastrous effect on DMI. Think of each of these straps as ratios, i.e., 125 is 1.25 and 166 is 1.66 and 250 is 2.50 and think of the normal BCLK range for most of these chips as 95 to 105. The BCLK is multiplied by the ratio. So applying a 1.25 ratio to the range of 95 to 105 results in a BCLK range for ram speed and CPU frequency of 118.75 to 131.25. Since the factory base is 100, the math is easier now than it was with earlier chips, such as Westmeres and Nehalems, that use a base of 133. In other words, ram speed and CPU frequency can be increased by about 119% to 131% (that's why ram 2 steps higher than that recommended by the motherboard manufacturer may be required). The problem is that most motherboard manufacturers have, to date, had trouble implementing this feature fully. So for now unless you have a Sandy Bridge with an unlocked multiplier so that you can significantly increase performance, you might be SOL when it comes to getting much better performance by changing Bclock significantly until a bios is released to cure this strapping issue.

A recent Intel CPU revelation spotlights the specs for 22nm Ivy Bridges that should be available for retail purchase in late May [ http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel...s-256061.shtml ]. They are all 4-cores that have Intel HD Graphics 4000, 8MB cache, Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost 2. Three of them will turbo boost to 3.9 GHz and the fourth to 3.7 Ghz. However, what is interesting to me from an underclocker's point of view is that the one that will turbo to 3.7 (the i7-3770T - TDP rated at 45 watts!) has a non-turbo speed of 2.5 GHz (that's twelve bins of turbo). The i7-3770S, with a non-turbo speed of 3.1 GHz, will turbo to 3.9 GHZ (that's eight bins - TDP rated at 60 watts!). These two will generally run cooler and require that the user apply less voltage to the cores (Vcore) than the rest, i.e., the i7-3770 [3.4 -> 3.9 GHz - TDP rated at 77 watts!] and i7-3770K [3.5 -> 3.9 Ghz - TDP rated at 77 watts!]. I suspect that the chip(s) with the greater turbo ranges will [if the strapping issue is resolved and strapping is allowed on these Ivy Bridges] actually yield better performance than will the others, particularly in the case of that low TDP/12 bin stepper - i7-3770T. For those looking to build a 4-core system, good 1155 motherboards are priced from the low $50s to about $340 [ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...GA+1155&Page=1 ] and these new Ivy Bridges should be priced between $294 - $332 [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bri...oarchitecture)) ]. But only more intel from Intel about whether the i7-3770T can be strapped, time and trials will tell whether my suspicion is correct, or whether you to should be looking at only the i7-3370k if tweaking for significantly greater performance is your desire. Don't forget that the "k" means unlocked. Moreover, you should expect to see up to a 20% increase in CPU performance over a comparable Sandy Bridge [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bri...oarchitecture)) ] and keep in mind that Sandy Bridges, at clock to clock, show an 11.3% average performance increase compared to the Nehalem Generation, which includes Bloomfield, Clarkdale and Lynnfield processors [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Bridge ], yielding a lot more bang for your bucks. Thus, these aren't the old 4-cores you may have had or read about. Straight from the factory, they should yield performance close to yesteryears 6-cores and when properly tweaked, excel them. My yesteryear 4-core Intel Core i7-975 when tweaked yields a Geekbench 2 score of 15,101. If Intel is telling the truth about those performance deltas, then 15,101 x 8 (to be on safe side for SB delta) x 15 (again, to be on safe side for IB delta) = 18,755.44 Geekbench 2 score. Isn't that in the territory where the 6-cores of yesteryear reside? Mac Pro (Mid 2010) Intel Xeon W3680 3.33 GHz (6 cores) average 64-bit performance in Geekbench is 15,720 [ http://www.primatelabs.ca/geekbench/...chmarks/#64bit ]. Also, it should be noted that Pookeyhead has shown that Intel may have been giving us the safe side deltas because he has tweaked a single i7 3690X to yield a geekbench 2 score of 29,185, which is higher that any average score shown in the immediately preceding URL [ http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/533324 ]. I wonder what his system would have scored with a comparable 6-core Ivy Bridge. But, he's guilty of overvolting, which I do not recommend doing. I advocate staying within the CPUs spec VID.

If Newegg puts together combos for these new Ivy Bridge 4-core chips, as it has for the i7-2600k - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboB...t=Combo.828852, you'll probably be able to purchase an entire i7-3370k base system for about $1150 or deck out your own for under $1500.

My Mac Pro mods were somewhat along the lines of what Wonderspark did to his, except I started with a dual-processor 5,1. No firmware updating necessary. I wanted a dual-proc box and avoided the 4,1s because of the lidless processors that the dual-proc 4,1s are "cursed" with.

I bought two of the Intel x5690 Xeons for my system. The slowest part of the process was removing the 4 hex/allen key screws from the heat sink over each CPU. An extra-long hex screw driver is needed to reach the heads of the screws, and you basically have to line the driver up to the bolt via feel because it's tricky to see inside the heat sink. Once the heat sinks are off, the CPUs are sitting in standard ZIF slots. I took extra time cleaning the old thermal grease off of the existing CPUs, heat sinks, and the CPU brackets (I later sold my CPUs so I wanted them clean and presentable). After putting the new CPUs in, locking the brackets down, and applying a small amount of thermal grease, I re-attached the heat sinks. Again the tricky part is lining the hex driver up with the screws because you can't see anything.

Given this thread is titled "CPU performance" I won't bother sharing the rest of the mods.

Location: Suburb of Birmingham, AL - Home of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Quote:

Originally Posted by jasonvp

... .
Given this thread is titled "CPU performance" I won't bother sharing the rest of the mods.

jas

By using the phrase "CPU Related Performance" I intended to include other things such as, but not limited to, better cooling, faster storage, video card upgrades for OCL assist and memory upgrades. I'll edit my call to make this clearer. Thanks jasonvp.

Of course, the top dog in turbo expansion is the most expensive. For now, expansive turbo ranges yield high performance. The Geekbench 2 and Cinebench 11.5 performance of a pair of un-tweaked 2690s is on par with my tweaked (underclocked and turbobiased) pair of 5680s with 6/12-cores per CPU, running at 2.483 GHz, with 14 turbo bins/steps and with 6.4GT/s-QPI . So, let the dual CPU motherboards arrive from Apple, Intel, EVGA, Asus, SuperMicro and from any other source that wants to enter the fray. Then we, as individuals, will pick the one(s) we like best based on our needs, desires and abilities.

Great information, thanks for posting! I've bookmarked this thread for the day when I consider a CPU upgrade.

Thanks for the feedback.

Tip: When you want a powerful Mac Pro, but Apple doesn't provide the CPU power that you want, but it does provide lower CPU power offerings, you may want to consider buying the cheapest refurb offering taking into account the socket and other compatibility issues, then just swap the installed CPU for the one you really want if this is cost effective and within your budget. What you do with those chips you remove is up to you. However, I suggest that you consider installing them into self-built systems and tweaking them if you have a need for multiple systems for things such as rendering. Those 5520 2.26 GHz 4-cores that I originally removed from my refurb 2009 Mac Pro when I upgraded it to 5580s in the summer of 2009, recently went into a used refurb EVGA SR2 where they now yield performance at least equal to that of the 5580s. Those 5580 when replaced by 5680s, went into a used refurb SR2 and they yield performance at least equal to 2.9 GHz 5670s. Such self-built systems also make great family gifts and provide you with an opportunity to increase your knowledge base and can make for great family projects. Waste not, want not.

Location: Suburb of Birmingham, AL - Home of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

SRX announced by EVGA. There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that the SRX is an overclockable motherboard, which is soon to be released. However, the bad news is very bad - E5 8-cores have locked multipliers and locked - inaccessible - CPU straps, so until Intel releases fully unlocked E5's there'll be no overclocking beyond what could have been done to Sandy Bridge non-K chips in the past, i.e., overclock limited to about 6-8 percent. However, a pair of the top of the line E5's still compare favorably to a pair of tweaked top of the line 5600's, but just cost about $1,000 more; and one 2687W performs comparably to a pair of non-tweaked 5670's.

Location: Suburb of Birmingham, AL - Home of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute

Pick up from post #113 in Mac Pro Geekbench-Whats your Score

"WolfPack1" (WP1) and "WolfPack2" (WP2) are my self-built systems. WP3 is in the wings.

Look at the first 6 pics [ http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=268280&amp;mpage=1 ], but be led by the following.
To tweak an EVGA SR2 build using dual 5650s, leave the Memory Frequency on DDR-1066 (or 800 until faster ram [DDR3 1866 or DDR3 2000] is installed if you perceive any system instability). Start by using 175 BCLK Setup as the starting point to work your way up to the 185 BCLK area (this is where d00d's underclocking [ http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...ic=233891&st=0 ] of the base speed ended because he [as do I] rely on turbo to take us higher). You can't go to BCLK 200 with 5680s using our techniques unless you are using liquid nitrogen because turbo would take your speeds out of the roof. Even BCLK 180 is very high with turbo biased 5680's. Treat d00d's advice and my advice as the trump cards if you have received different advice. For example:
1) Under Frequency/Voltage Control for overclocking change the following to:
PCIE Frequency Setting - 102-103;
2) Under Voltage Configuration for overclocking change the following to:
All Bootup and Eventual Vcore to "Auto"
All Bootup VTT's to 3.50 to 3.75, depending on stability needs
All Eventual VTT's to 3.75 to 1.4, depending on stability needs
IOH to 3.75 to 1.4, depending on stability needs;
3) Under Signal Tweaks for overclocking change the following to:
Only PCIE Signals 1 and 2 should be "Auto", all of the rest should be set at their maximum negative value;
4) Under CPU Configuration for overclocking change the following to:
Only Max CPUID Value Limit should be disabled; everything else should be enabled;
5) Under Memory Configuration for overclocking change the following to:
Try Auto/Default states for all until system is completely stable.

If you want to try underclocking the 5650's for now, so that when your X5680's come in a couple of weeks from now you should have had some practice, with the 5650's try this as your underclocking BIOS set up on the Frequency/Voltage Control page:
Dummy O.C. - disabled
Target CPU - {bios sets this automatically based on the equation - CPU Freq. x CPU Multi; so with the settings below, you'd get 180 x13 or 2340 MHz or 2.34 GHz}
CPU Freq. - 180
PCIE Freq. - 103
CPU Multi - 13
QPI - 4.8
Memory Freq. - 1066

Leave all of the other pages the same as for overclocking, but make sure that beforehand that you properly installed d00d's dsdt.aml file and properly edited the fakesmc.kext, then blessed it {E.g., in Terminal enter:
1) sudo su [Enter]
2) chown -R root:wheel /Volumes/[pathway to kext file to be blessed, starting with name of your HD]/*.kext [Enter]
3) chmod -R 755/Volumes/[pathway to kext file to be blessed, starting with name of your HD]/*.kext [Enter] }. Remember that I recommend using a plist/kext file editor, such as PlistEdit Pro {Fat Cat Software}, for editing kext files.

You have the same Mobo (and very soon you'll have the same) RAM and CPUs that I have. You know that things will be a bit different (as every CPU and other parts) needs different tweaking, but I suspect that if you begin with the settings (for 5680's) I give in post #70 in d00d's thread [ http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...c=233891&st=60 ], for my 24/7 BIOS underclocking setup that you'll be able to begin your tweaks on the 5680s from there.

Try a little bit harder to learn d00d's setup as I outlined it in my e-mail to you, for most of it just involves your downloading his DSDT_SR2_3.zip, opening it up and then placing the modified dsdt.aml file in your Extras folder, making sure you changed the name of that file to "dsdt.aml." and then modifying the the fakesmc.kext file as d00d recommends (for without it you will not get the advantages of native power management - namely the turbo advantage; that's the most important part). I too know that he (like all of us) is very busy with other things and this is just something that he wants to contribute to help those who chose to follow this path, knowing the hazards and having the courage and determination to continue their learning and putting it to practice. D00d's cautions are : 1) To have a Hac is not to keep a Hac and 2) You can be given the fish the first time to taste and judge whether you like it's taste, but unless you learn how to fish you'll regret ever having bought this boat and gone into this bay and as time proceeds the remembrance of that once tasty fish will vanish and all that you'll recall is the salty taste of the sea where once that fish had swam, but now you're sinking fast. Again, if you have a question about d00d's install process and ask me for some clarity I'll do my best to explain it in a way for you to understand what it is he is saying. Friends/mates to the end.

"WolfPack1" (WP1) and "WolfPack2" (WP2) are my self-built systems. WP3 is in the wings.

Look at the first 6 pics [ http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=268280&amp;mpage=1 ], but be led by the following.
To tweak an EVGA SR2 build using dual 5650s, leave the Memory Frequency on DDR-1066 (or 800 until faster ram [DDR3 1866 or DDR3 2000] is installed if you perceive any system instability). Start by using 175 BCLK Setup as the starting point to work your way up to the 185 BCLK area (this is where d00d's underclocking [ http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...ic=233891&st=0 ] of the base speed ended because he [as do I] rely on turbo to take us higher). You can't go to BCLK 200 with 5680s using our techniques unless you are using liquid nitrogen because turbo would take your speeds out of the roof. Even BCLK 180 is very high with turbo biased 5680's. Treat d00d's advice and my advice as the trump cards if you have received different advice. For example:
1) Under Frequency/Voltage Control for overclocking change the following to:
PCIE Frequency Setting - 102-103;
2) Under Voltage Configuration for overclocking change the following to:
All Bootup and Eventual Vcore to "Auto"
All Bootup VTT's to 3.50 to 3.75, depending on stability needs
All Eventual VTT's to 3.75 to 1.4, depending on stability needs
IOH to 3.75 to 1.4, depending on stability needs;
3) Under Signal Tweaks for overclocking change the following to:
Only PCIE Signals 1 and 2 should be "Auto", all of the rest should be set at their maximum negative value;
4) Under CPU Configuration for overclocking change the following to:
Only Max CPUID Value Limit should be disabled; everything else should be enabled;
5) Under Memory Configuration for overclocking change the following to:
Try Auto/Default states for all until system is completely stable.

If you want to try underclocking the 5650's for now, so that when your X5680's come in a couple of weeks from now you should have had some practice, with the 5650's try this as your underclocking BIOS set up on the Frequency/Voltage Control page:
Dummy O.C. - disabled
Target CPU - {bios sets this automatically based on the equation - CPU Freq. x CPU Multi; so with the settings below, you'd get 180 x13 or 2340 MHz or 2.34 GHz}
CPU Freq. - 180
PCIE Freq. - 103
CPU Multi - 13
QPI - 4.8
Memory Freq. - 1066

Leave all of the other pages the same as for overclocking, but make sure that beforehand that you properly installed d00d's dsdt.aml file and properly edited the fakesmc.kext, then blessed it {E.g., in Terminal enter:
1) sudo su [Enter]
2) chown -R root:wheel /Volumes/[pathway to kext file to be blessed, starting with name of your HD]/*.kext [Enter]
3) chmod -R 755/Volumes/[pathway to kext file to be blessed, starting with name of your HD]/*.kext [Enter] }. Remember that I recommend using a plist/kext file editor, such as PlistEdit Pro {Fat Cat Software}, for editing kext files.

You have the same Mobo (and very soon you'll have the same) RAM and CPUs that I have. You know that things will be a bit different (as every CPU and other parts) needs different tweaking, but I suspect that if you begin with the settings (for 5680's) I give in post #70 in d00d's thread [ http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/ind...c=233891&st=60 ], for my 24/7 BIOS underclocking setup that you'll be able to begin your tweaks on the 5680s from there.

Try a little bit harder to learn d00d's setup as I outlined it in my e-mail to you, for most of it just involves your downloading his DSDT_SR2_3.zip, opening it up and then placing the modified dsdt.aml file in your Extras folder, making sure you changed the name of that file to "dsdt.aml." and then modifying the the fakesmc.kext file as d00d recommends (for without it you will not get the advantages of native power management - namely the turbo advantage; that's the most important part). I too know that he (like all of us) is very busy with other things and this is just something that he wants to contribute to help those who chose to follow this path, knowing the hazards and having the courage and determination to continue their learning and putting it to practice. D00d's cautions are : 1) To have a Hac is not to keep a Hac and 2) You can be given the fish the first time to taste and judge whether you like it's taste, but unless you learn how to fish you'll regret ever having bought this boat and gone into this bay and as time proceeds the remembrance of that once tasty fish will vanish and all that you'll recall is the salty taste of the sea where once that fish had swam, but now you're sinking fast. Again, if you have a question about d00d's install process and ask me for some clarity I'll do my best to explain it in a way for you to understand what it is he is saying. Friends/mates to the end.

I will definitely take the time today and tomorrow to study out this information and also go to d00d's post on InsanelyMac to take the time needed until I get to a part where it gets confusing for me, then I'll ask you for a re-explanation of it. What I will do in the meantime is use the existing HyperX Kingston 48GB of RAM that I have now and when the new Corsair XMS3 RAM gets in a couple of days I'll put them in and see how much better they work, which I'm looking forward to. Thanks again for your contribution and I will continue to learn as much as I can from you...

By the way, about d00d's first 3 BIOS settings (that you recommended I follow), that I should just follow those and ignore and leave the last 3 rules alone and not adjust them, correct?